Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - BOOK 04

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Book four of the Yugosutras of Patanjali by Patanjali, translated
by Charles Johnston eighteen sixty seven to nineteen thirty one.
Introduction to Book four. The third book of the Sutras
has fairly completed the history of the birth and growth
of the spiritual man and the enumeration of his powers,

(00:22):
at least so far as concerned that first epoch in
his immortal life, which immediately succeeds and supersedes the life
of the natural man. In the fourth book, we are
to consider what one might call the mechanism of salvation,
the ideally simple working of cosmic law, which brings the
spiritual man to birth, growth, and fullness of power, and

(00:44):
prepares him for the splendid, toilsome further stages of his
great journey home. The Sutras are here brief to obscurity.
Only a few words, for example, are given to the
great triune mystery and illusion of time. Just a phrase
or two ens indicates the sweep of some universal law.
Yet it is hoped that by keeping our eyes fixed

(01:06):
on the spiritual man, remembering that he is the hearer
of the story, and that all that is written concerns
him and his adventures, we may be able to find
our way through this thicket of tangled words and keep
in our hands the clue to the mystery. The last
part of the last book needs little introduction. In a sense,

(01:27):
it is the most important part of the whole treatise,
since it unmasks the nature of the personality, that psychical mind,
which is the wakeful enemy of all who seek to
tread the path. Even now we can hear it whispering
the doubt whether that can be a good path, which
thus sets mind at defiance. If this then be the

(01:50):
most vital and fundamental part of the teaching, should it
not stand at the very beginning. It may seem so
at first, But had it stood there, we should not
have comprehended it. For he who would know the doctrine
must lead the life doing the will of his father,
which is in Heaven Book four one. Psychic and spiritual

(02:12):
powers may be inborn, or they may be gained by
the use of drugs, or by incantations, or by fervor,
or by meditation interpretation. Spiritual powers have been enumerated and
described in the preceding sections. They are the normal powers
of the spiritual man, the antetype, the divine edition of

(02:35):
the powers of the natural man. Through these powers, the
spiritual man stands, sees, hears speaks in the spiritual world,
and the physical man stands sees hears speaks in the
natural world. There is a counterfeit presentment of the spiritual
man in the world of dreams, a shadow, lord of shadows,

(02:57):
who has his own dreamy powers of vision, of hearing,
of movement. He has left the natural world without reaching
spiritual He has set forth from the shore, but he
has not gained the further verge of the river. He
is borne along the stream with no foothold on either shore,
leaving the actual. He has fallen short of the real,

(03:17):
caught in the limbo of vanities and delusions. The cause
of this abearrent phantasm is always the worship of a false,
vain self, the lord of dreams within one's own breast.
This is the psychic man, lord of delusive and bewildering
psychic powers. Spiritual powers, like intellectual or artistic gifts, may

(03:39):
be inborn the fruit, that is, of seeds planted and
reared with toil in a former birth. So also the
powers of the psychic man may be inborn a delusive
harvest from seeds of delusion. Psychical powers may be gained
by drugs, as poverty, shamed debasement may be gained by
the self same drugs. In their action, they are baneful,

(04:02):
cutting the man off from consciousness of the restraining power
of his divine nature, so that his forces break forth exuberant,
like the laughter of drunkards. And he sees and hears
things delusive. While sinking, he believes that he has risen,
growing weaker, he thinks himself full of strength, beholding illusions,
he takes them to be true. Such are the powers

(04:24):
gained by drugs. They are wholly psychic, since the real powers,
the spiritual, can never be so gained. Incantations are affirmations
of half truths concerning spirit and matter, what is and
what is not, which work upon the mind and slowly
build up a wraith of powers and a delusive well being.

(04:44):
These two are of the psychic realm of dreams. Lastly,
they are the true powers of the spiritual man, built
up and realized in meditation through reverent obedience to spiritual law,
to the pure conditions of being in the divine realm. Two,
the transfer of powers from one vesture to another comes

(05:06):
through the flow of the natural creative forces. Interpretation here,
if we can perceive it, is the whole secret of
spiritual birth, growth, and life. Spiritual being, like all being,
is but an expression of the self, of the inherent
power and being of Utma. Inherent in the self are

(05:27):
consciousness and will, which have as their lordly heritage the
wise sweep of the universe through eternity. For the self
is one with the eternal, and the consciousness of the
Self may make itself manifest as seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling,
or whatsoever perceptive power there may be. Just as the

(05:47):
white sunlight may divide into many colored rays, so may
the will of the self manifest itself in the uttering
of words, or in handling, or in moving, and whatever
powers of action there are throughout the seven world worlds.
Where the Self is, there will its powers be. It
is but a question of the vesture through which these
powers shall shine forth. And wherever the consciousness and desire

(06:11):
of the ever creative Self are fixed, there will a
vesture be built up. Where the heart is, there will
the treasure be also. Since through the ages the desire
of the self has been toward the natural world, wherein
the self sought to mirror himself, that he might know himself.
Therefore a vesture of natural elements came into being, through

(06:31):
which blossomed forth the self's powers of perceiving and of will,
the power to see, to here, to speak, to walk,
to handle. And when the Self thus come to self consciousness,
and with it to a knowledge of his imprisonment, shall
set his desire on the divine and real world, and
raise his consciousness there too, the spiritual vesture shall be

(06:54):
built up for him there, with its expression of his
inherent powers. Nor or will migration thither be difficult for
the self, since the divine is no strange or foreign
land for him, but the house of his home, where
he dwells from everlasting Three. The apparent immediate cause is

(07:16):
not the true cause of the creative nature powers. But
like the husbandman in his field, it takes obstacles away interpretation.
The husbandman tills his field, breaking up the clods of
earth into fine mold, penetrable to air and rain. He
sows his seed, carefully covering it for fear of birds

(07:36):
in the wind. He waters the seed laden earth, turning
the little rills from the irrigation tank. Now this way
and that, removing obstacles from the channels, until the even
flow of water vitalizes the whole field. And so the
plants germinate and grow, first the blade, then the ear,
then the full corn in the ear. But it is

(07:58):
not the husbandman who makes them grow. It is first
the miraculous plasmic power in the grain of seed, which
brings forth after its kind. Then the alchemy of sunlight, which,
in the presence of the green coloring matter of the leaves,
gathers hydrogen from the water and carbon from the gases
in the air and mingles them in the hydrocarbons of

(08:20):
plant growth. And finally the wholly occult vital powers of
the plant itself, stored up through ages and flowing down
from the primal sources of life. The husbandman but removes
the obstacles. He plants and waters, but God gives the increase.
So with the finer husbandman of diviner fields he tills

(08:42):
and sows. But the growth of the spiritual man comes
through the surge and flow of divine creative forces and powers.
Here again God gives the increase. The divine self puts
forth for the manifestation of its powers. A new and
finer vesture, the body of the spiritual man sec four

(09:03):
vestures of consciousness are built up in conformity with the
position of the feeling selfhood interpretation. The self, says a
great teacher, in turn, attaches itself to three vestures, first
to the physical body, then to the finer body, and
thirdly to the causal body. Finally, it stands forth, radiant, luminous,

(09:27):
joyous as the self. When the self attributes itself to
the physical body, there arise the states of bodily consciousness
built up about the physical self. When the self, breaking
through this first illusion, begins to see and feel in
the finer body, to find selfhood there, then the states
of consciousness of the finer body come into being. Or,

(09:51):
to speak exactly, the finer body and its states of
consciousness arise and grow together. But the self must not
dwell permanently there. It must learn to find itself in
the causal body, to build up the wide and luminous
fields of consciousness that belong to that. Nor must it
dwell forever there. For there remains the fourth state, the divine,

(10:13):
with its own splendor and everlastingness, It is all a
question of the states of consciousness, all a question of
raising the sense of selfhood until it dwells forever in
the eternal. Five In the different fields of manifestation, the consciousness,
though one, is the effective cause of many states of consciousness.

(10:35):
Interpretation here is the splendid teaching of oneness that lies
at the heart of Eastern wisdom. Consciousness is ultimately one,
everywhere and forever the eternal. The Father is the one
self of all beings, and so in each individual, who
is but a facet of that self, consciousness is one.

(10:59):
Whether it breaks through as the dull fire of physical life,
or the murky flame of the psychic and passional, or
the radiance of the spiritual man, or the full glory
of the divine, it is ever the light, naught but
the light. The one Consciousness is the effective cause of
all states of consciousness on every plane. Six. Among states

(11:23):
of consciousness, that which is born of contemplation is free
from the seed of future sorrow. Interpretation. Where the consciousness
breaks forth in the physical body and the full play
of bodily life begins, its progression carries with it inevitable limitations.
Birth involves death, meetings, have their partings. Hunger alternates with satiety.

(11:47):
Age follows on the heels of youth. So do the
states of consciousness run along the circle of birth and death.
With the psychic. The alternation between prize and penalty is swifter.
Hope has its shadow of fear, or it is no hope.
Exclusive love is tortured by jealousy. Pleasure passes through deadness

(12:08):
into pain. Pain, so cease brings pleasure back again. So
here too the states of consciousness run in their circle.
In all psychic states there is egotism, which indeed is
the very essence of the psychic. And where there is egotism,
there is never the seed of future sorrow. Desire carries

(12:29):
bondage in its womb. But where the pure spiritual consciousness begins,
free from self and stain, the ancient law of retaliation ceases.
The penalty of sorrow lapses and is no more imposed.
The soul now passes no longer from sorrow to sorrow,
but from glory to glory. Its growth and splendor have

(12:50):
no limit. The good passes to better best. Seven. The
works of follows after union make neither force bright pleasure
nor for dark pain. The works of others make for
pleasure or pain, or a mingling of these. Interpretation, the
man of desire wins from his works the reward of pleasure,

(13:13):
or incurs the penalty of pain, or, as so often
happens in life, his gurden, like the passionate mood of
the lover, is part pleasure and part pain. Works done
with self seeking bear within them the seeds of future sorrow. Conversely,
according to the proverb, present pain is future gain. But

(13:35):
for him who is gone beyond desire, whose desire is
set on the eternal, neither pain to be avoided nor
pleasure to be gained inspires his work. He fears no
hell and desires no heaven. His one desire is to
know the will of the Father and finish his work.
He comes directly in line with the divine will and

(13:56):
works cleanly and immediately, without longing or fear. His heart
dwells in the eternal, and his desires are set on
the eternal. Eight. From the force inherent in works comes
the manifestation of those dynamic mind images which are conformable
to the ripening out of each of these works. Interpretation,

(14:20):
We are now to consider the general mechanism of karma
in order that we may pass on to the consideration
of him who is free from karma. Karma, indeed, is
the concern of the personal man of his bondage or freedom.
It is the succession of the forces which have built
up the personal man, reproducing themselves in one personality after another.

(14:42):
Now let us take an imaginary case to see how
these forces may work out. Let us think of a
man with murderous intent in his heart, striking with a
dagger at his enemy. He makes a red wound in
his victim's breast. At the same instant he paints in
his own mind mind a picture of that wound, a
picture dynamic with all the fierce will power he has

(15:05):
put into his murderous blow. In other words, he has
made a deep wound in his own psychic body. And
when he comes to be born again, that body will
become his outermost vesture, upon which, with its wound still there,
bodily tissue will be built up. So the man will
be born maimed or with the predisposition to some mortal injury.

(15:27):
He is unguarded at that point, and any trifling accidental
blow will pierce the broken joints of his psychic armor.
Thus do the dynamic mind images manifest themselves, coming to
the surface, so that works done in the past may
ripen and come to fruition. Nine works separated by different

(15:49):
nature or place or time are brought together by the
correspondence between memory and dynamic impression interpretation. Just as in
the ripening out of mind images into bodily conditions, the
effect is brought about by the ray of creative force
sent down by the self. Somewhat as the light of

(16:10):
the magic lantern projects the details of a picture on
the screen, revealing the hidden and making secret things palpable
and visible. So does this divine ray exercise a selective
power on the dynamic mind images, bringing together into one
day of life the seeds gathered from many days. The
memory constantly exemplifies this power a passage of poetry or

(16:33):
call up in the mind, like passages of many poets
read at different times, So a prayer may call up
many prayers in like manner. The same overruling selective power,
which is a ray of the higher Self, gathers together
from different births and times and places those mind images
which are conformable and may be grouped in the frame

(16:54):
of a single life or a single event. Through this grouping,
visible bodily conditions or an outward circumstances are brought about,
and by these the soul is taught and trained. Just
as the dynamic mind images of desire ripen out in
bodily conditions and circumstances, so the far more dynamic powers
of aspiration, wherein the soul reaches toward the eternal, have

(17:17):
their function in a finer world building the vesture of
the spiritual man. Ten the series of dynamic mind images
is beginningless because desire is everlasting interpretation. The whole series
of dynamic mind images, which make up the entire history
of the personal man, is a part of the mechanism

(17:38):
which the self employs to mirror itself in a reflection,
to embody its powers in an outward form, to the
end of self expression, self realization, self knowledge. Therefore, the
initial impulse behind these dynamic mind images comes from the
self and is the descending ray of the self, so
that it cannot be said that there is any first

(17:59):
memory of the series of images from which the rest arose.
The impulse is beginningless since it comes from the self,
which is from everlasting desire is not to cease, it
is to turn to the eternal and so become aspiration. Eleven.
Since the dynamic mind images are held together by impulses

(18:22):
of desire, by the wish for personal reward, by the
substratum of mental habit, by the support of outer things desired. Therefore,
when these cease, the self reproduction of dynamic mind images ceases. Interpretation,
we are still concerned with the personal life in its
bodily vesture, and with the process whereby the forces which

(18:44):
have upheld it are gradually transferred to the life of
the spiritual man and build up for him his finer
vesture in a finer world. How is the current to
be changed? How is the flow of self reproductive mind images,
which have built the conditions of life after life in
this world of bondage to be checked, that the time

(19:05):
of imprisonment may come to an end the day of
liberation dawn. The answer is given in the Sutrages translated.
The driving force is withdrawn and directed to the upbuilding
of the spiritual body. When the building impulses and forces
are withdrawn, the tendency to manifest a new psychical body,
a new body of bondage ceases with them twelve. The

(19:30):
difference between that which is past and that which is
not yet come according to their natures, depends on the
difference of phase of their properties. Interpretation. Here we come
to a high and difficult matter which has always been
held to be of great moment in the Eastern wisdom,
the thought that the division of time into past, present,

(19:52):
and future is in great measure an illusion, that past, present,
future all dwell together in the eternal now. The discernment
of this truth has been held to be so necessarily
a part of wisdom that one of the names of
the enlightened is he who has passed beyond the three times, past, present, future.

(20:16):
So the Western Master said before Abraham was I am
and again I am with you always until the end
of the world. Using the eternal present for past and
future alike with the same purpose, the Master speaks of
himself as the Alpha and the omega, the beginning and
the end, the first and the last, and a master

(20:39):
of our own days. Writes I feel even irritated at
having to use these three clumsy words past, present, and future,
miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective whole.
They are about as ill adapted for their purpose as
an axe for fine carving in the eternal. Now, both

(21:00):
past and future are consummated. Puokland, the Swedish philosopher, has
well stated the same truth. Neither past nor future can exist.
To God, he lives undividedly without limitations, and needs not
as man to plot out his existence in a series
of moments. Eternity, then, is not identical with unending time.

(21:24):
It is a different form of existence related to time
as the perfect to the imperfect. Man as an entity
for himself, must have the natural limitations for the part
conceived by God. Man is eternal in the divine sense,
but conceived by himself. Man's eternal life is clothed in
the limitations we call time. The eternal is a constant present,

(21:47):
without beginning or end, without past or future. Thirteen. These properties,
whether manifest or latent, are of the nature of the
three potenties. Interpretation, the three potencies are the three manifested
modifications of the one primal material, which stands opposite to

(22:10):
perceiving consciousness. These three potencies are called substance, force, darkness,
or viewed rather from their moral coloring, goodness, passion, inertness.
Every material manifestation is a projection of substance into the
empty space of darkness. Every mental state is either good

(22:32):
or passional, or inert. So, whether subjective or objective, latent
or manifest, all things that present themselves to the perceiving
consciousness are compounded of these three. This is a fundamental
doctrine of the Sunkia system fourteen. The external manifestation of

(22:53):
an object takes place when the transformations are in the
same phase interpretation. We should be inclined to express the
same law by saying, for example, that a sound is
audible when it consists of vibrations within the compass of
the auditory nerve. That an object is visible when either

(23:13):
directly or by reflection, it sends forth luminiferous vibrations within
the compass of the retina, and the optic nerve vibrations
below or above that compass make no impression at all,
and the object remains invisible, as for example, a kettle
of boiling water in a dark room, though the kettle
is sending fourth heat vibrations closely akin to light. So

(23:37):
when the vibrations of the object and those of the
perceptive power are in the same phase, the external manifestation
of the objects takes place. There seems to be a
further suggestion that the appearance of an object in the present,
or its remaining hid in the past or future, is
likewise a question of phase. And just as the range
of vibrations perceived might be increased by the development of

(24:00):
finest senses, so the perception of things past and things
to come may be easy from a higher point of view. Fifteen,
The paths of material things and of states of consciousness
are distinct, as is manifest from the fact that the
same object may produce different impressions in different minds. Interpretation.

(24:24):
Having shown that our bodily condition and circumstances depend on karma,
while karma depends on perception and will, the sage recognizes
the fact that from this may be drawn the false
deduction that material things are in no wise different from
states of mind. The same thought has occurred and still
occurs to all philosophers, and by various reasonings, they all

(24:47):
come to the same wise conclusion that the material world
is not made by the mood of any human mind,
but is rather the manifestation of the totality of invisible being.
Whether we call this mahat with d the ancients or
ether with the moderns. Sixteen. Nor do material objects depend

(25:07):
upon a single mind, for how could they remain objective
to others if that mind cease to think them interpretation.
This is but a further development of the thought of
the preceding sutra, carrying on the thought that while the
universe is spiritual, yet its material expression is ordered, consistent,
ruled by law, not subject to the whims or affirmations

(25:30):
of a single mind. Unwelcome material things may be escaped
by spiritual growth, by rising to the realm above them,
and not by denying their existence on their own plane,
so that our system is neither materialistic nor idealistic in
the extreme sense, but rather intuitional and spiritual, holding that
matter is the manifestation of spirit as a whole, a

(25:52):
reflection or exteriorization of Spirit, and like spirit everywhere obedient
to law. The path of liberation is not through denial
of matter, but through denial of the wills of self,
through obedience and that aspiration which builds the vesture of
the spiritual man. Seventeen. An object is perceived or not

(26:16):
perceived according as the mind is or is not tinged
with the color of the object interpretation. The simplest manifestation
of this is the matter of attention. Our minds apprehend
what they wish to apprehend. All else passes unnoticed. Or
on the other hand, we perceive what we resent, as

(26:37):
for example, the noise of a passing train, while others
used to the sound do not notice it at all.
But the deeper meaning is that out of the vast
totality of objects ever present in the universe, the mind
perceives only those which conform to the hue of its comma.
The rest remain unseen, even though close at hand. This

(26:58):
spiritual law has been one expressed by Emerson. Through solidest
external things, the man finds his road as if they
did not subsist, and does not once suspect their being.
As soon as he needs a new object, suddenly he
beholds it and no longer attempts to pass through it,
but takes another way. When he is exhausted for the

(27:20):
time the nourishment to be drawn from any one person
or thing, that object is withdrawn from his observation, and
though still in his immediate neighborhood, he does not suspect
its presence. Nothing is dead Men feign themselves dead and
endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries. And there they stand,
looking out of the window, sound and well, in some

(27:42):
new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead, he is
very well alive. Nor John nor Paul, no Mohomet nor Aristotle.
At times we believe we have seen them all and
could easily tell the names under which they go a.
The movements of the psychic nature are perpetually objects of perception,

(28:05):
since the spiritual man, who is the lord of them,
remains unchanging. Interpretation here is teaching of the utmost import
both for understanding and for practice. To the psychic nature.
Belong all the ebb and flow of emotion, all hoping
and fearing, desire and hate, the things that make the

(28:26):
multitude of men and women deem themselves happy or miserable.
To it. Also belong the measuring and comparing, the doubt
and questioning, which, for the same multitude make up mental life.
So that there results the emotion soaked personality, with its
dark and narrow view of life, the shivering, terror driven

(28:47):
personality that is life itself for all but all of mankind.
Yet the personality is not the true man, not the
living soul at all, but only a spectacle which the
true man observes. Let us understand this, therefore, and draw
ourselves up inwardly to the height of the spiritual man, who,

(29:08):
standing in the quiet light of the eternal, looks down
serene upon this turmoil of the outer life. One first
masters the personality the mind by thus looking down on
it from above from within, by steadily watching its ebb
and flow as objective outward and therefore not the real self.

(29:29):
This standing back is the first step detachment. The second,
to maintain the vantage ground thus gained is recollection nineteen.
The mind is not self luminous, since it can be
seen as an object interpretation. This is a further step

(29:49):
toward overthrowing the tyranny of the mind, the psychic nature
of emotion and mental measuring this psychic self. The personality
claims to be absolute, asserting that life is for it
and through it. It seeks to impose on the whole
being of man its narrow, materialistic, faithless view of life
and the universe. It would clip the wings of the

(30:12):
soaring soul. But the soul dethrones the tyrant by perceiving
and steadily affirming that the psychic self is no true
self at all, not self luminous, but only an object
of observation watched by the serene eyes of the spiritual man.
Twenty Nor could the mind at the same time know

(30:35):
itself and things external to it interpretation. The truth is
that the mind knows neither external things nor itself. Its
measuring and analyzing, its hoping and fearing, hating and desiring,
never give it a true measure of life, nor any
sense of real values. Ceaselessly active, it never rarely attains

(30:59):
to knowledge, or if we admit its knowledge, it ever
falls short of wisdom, which comes only through intuition. The
vision of the spiritual man. Life cannot be known by
the mind. Its secrets cannot be learned through the mind.
The proof is the ceaseless strife and contradiction of opinion
among those who trust in the mind. Much less can

(31:22):
the mind know itself, the more so because it is
pervaded by the illusion that it truly knows. Truly is true.
Knowledge of the mind comes first when the spiritual man arising,
stands detached, regarding the mind from above with quiet eyes
and seeing it for the tangled web of psychic forces

(31:43):
that it truly is. But the truth is divined long
before it is clearly seen, and then begins the long
battle of the mind against the real, the mind fighting doggedly,
craftily for its supremacy. Twenty one. If the mind be
thought of as seen by another more inward mind, then

(32:04):
there would be an endless series of perceiving minds and
a confusion of memories interpretation. One of the expedients by
which the mind seeks to deny and thwart the soul
when it feels that it is beginning to be circumvented
and seen through, is to assert that this seeing is
the work of a part of itself, one part observing

(32:25):
the other, and thus leaving no need nor place for
the spiritual man to this strategy. The argument is opposed
by our philosopher that this would be no true solution,
but only a postponement of the solution, for we should
have to find yet another part of the mind to
view the first observing part, and then another to observe this,
and so on endlessly. The true solution is that the

(32:49):
spiritual man looks down upon the psychic nature and observes it.
When he views the psychic pictures gallery. This is memory,
which would be a hopeless, inextricable confuse usion if we
thought of one part of the mind with its memories
viewing another part with memories of its own. The solution
of the mystery lies not in the mind, but beyond it,

(33:10):
in the luminous life of the risen lord, the spiritual man.
Twenty two. When the psychical nature takes on the form
of the spiritual intelligence by reflecting it, then the self
becomes conscious of its own spiritual intelligence. Interpretation, we are
considering a stage of spiritual life at which the psychical

(33:32):
nature has been cleansed and purified. Formerly it reflected in
its plastic substance the images of the earthy, purified, Now
it reflects the image of the heavenly, giving the spiritual
intelligence a visible form. The self beholding that visible form
in which its spiritual intelligence has, as it were, taken

(33:52):
palpable shape, thereby reaches self recognition, self comprehension. The self
sees itself in this mirror and becomes not only conscious,
but self conscious. This is, from one point of view,
the purpose of the whole evolutionary process. Twenty three. The
psychic nature taking on the color of the sea, and

(34:15):
of things seen leads to the perception of all objects. Interpretation.
In the unregenerate man, the psychic nature is saturated with
images of material things, of things seen or heard, or
tasted or felt, and this web of dynamic images forms
the ordinary material and driving power of life. The sensation

(34:38):
of sweet things tasted clamors to be renewed and drives
the man into effort to obtain its renewal. So he
adds image to image, each dynamic and importunate, piling up
sins intolerable burden. Then comes regeneration and the washing way
of sin, through the fiery creative power of the soul,

(34:59):
which burns out the s stains of the psychic gesture,
purifying it as gold is refined in the furnace. The
suffering of regeneration springs from this indispensable purifying. Then the
psychic gesture begins to take on the color of the soul,
no longer stained but suffused with golden light, and the
man regenerate gleams with the radiance of eternity. Thus the

(35:22):
spiritual man puts on fair raiment for of this cleansing.
It is said, though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be white as snow. Though they be crimson, they
shall be as wool. Twenty four. The psychic nature, which
has been printed with mind images of innumerable material things,
exists now for the spiritual man, building for him interpretation.

(35:48):
The mind. Once the tyrant, is now the slave, recognized
as outward separate, not self a well trained instrument of
the spiritual man. For it is not ordain for the
spiritual man that, finding his high realm, he shall enter
altogether there and pass out of the vision of mankind.

(36:08):
It is true that he dwells in heaven, but he
also dwells on earth. He has angels and arch angels,
the hosts of the just, made perfect for his familiar friends.
But he has at the same time found a new
kinship with the prone children of men, who stumble and
sin in the dark. Finding sinlessness, he finds also that

(36:29):
the world's sin and shame are his, not to share,
but to atone. Finding kinship with angels, he likewise finds
his part in the toil of angels, the toil for
the redemption of the world. For this work, he, who
now stands in the heavenly realm, needs his instrument on
earth and this instrument he finds ready to his hand,

(36:51):
and fitted and perfected by the very struggles he has
waged against it. In the personality the mind of the
personal man, this once tyrant is now a servant and
perfect ambassador, bearing witness before men of heavenly things, and
even in this present world, doing the will and working
the works of the Father. Twenty five. For him who

(37:17):
discerns between the mind and the spiritual man, there comes
perfect fruition of the longing after the real being of
the self interpretation. How many times in the long struggle
have the soul's aspirations seemed but a hopeless, impossible dream,
a madman's counsel of perfection. Yet every finest, most impossible

(37:39):
aspiration shall be realized, and ten times more than realized,
once the long, arduous fight against the mind and the
mind's world view is one, And then it will be
seen that unfaith and despair were but weapons of the
mind to daunt the soul, to put off the day
when the neck of the mind shall be put under
the foot of the soul. Have you a byed well

(38:00):
nigh hopeless after immortality, you shall be paid by entering
the immortality of God. Have you aspired in misery and pain?
After consoling healing love, you shall be made a dispenser
of the divine love of God himself to wary souls.
Have you sought ardently in your day of feebleness? After power,

(38:22):
you shall wield power immortal, infinite, with God working the
works of God. Have you, in lonely darkness longed for
companionship and consolation. You shall have angels and arch angels
for your friends and all the immortal hosts of the dawn.
These are the fruits of victory. Therefore overcome, These are

(38:43):
the prizes of regeneration. Therefore, die to self, that you
may rise again to God twenty six. Thereafter the whole
personal being bends toward illumination, toward eternal life interpretation. This
is part of the secret of the soul. That salvation

(39:04):
means not merely that a soul shall be cleansed and
raised to heaven, but that the whole realm of the
natural powers shall be redeemed. Building up even in this
present world the kingly figure of the spiritual man. The
traditions of the ages are full of his footsteps, majestic,
uncomprehended shadows, myths, demigods fill the memories of all the

(39:27):
nobler peoples. But the time cometh when he shall be
known no longer demigod, nor myth, nor shadow, but the
ever present Redeemer, working amid men for the life and
cleansing of all souls. Twenty seven. In the internals of
the battle, other thought, soul rise through the impressions of

(39:49):
the dynamic mind images interpretation. The battle is long and arduous.
Let there be no mistakers to that go not forth
to this battle, with the anas out counting the cost
ages have gone to the strengthening of the foe. Ages
of conflict must be spent ere the foe, wholly conquered
becomes the servant, the soul's minister to mankind. And from

(40:13):
these long past ages, in hours when the contest flags
will come new foes, mind born children springing up to
fight for mind reinforcements coming from forgotten years, forgotten lives.
For once this conflict is begun, it can be ended
only by sweeping victory and unconditional, unreserved surrender of the vanquished.

(40:35):
Twenty eight. These are to be overcome, as it was
taught that hindrances should be overcome. Interpretation these new enemies
and fears are to be overcome by ceaselessly renewing the fight,
by a steadfast, dogged persistence, whether in victory or defeat,
which shall put the stubbornness of the rocks to shame.

(40:56):
For the soul is older than all things and invincible.
It is of the very nature of the soul to
be unconquerable. Therefore, fight on undaunted, knowing that the spiritual will,
once awakened, shall through the effort of the contest, come
to its full strength. That ground gained can be held permanently.

(41:16):
That great as is the dead weight of the adversary,
it is yet measurable. While the warrior who fights for you,
for whom you fight, is in might immeasurable, invincible, everlasting.
Twenty nine, he who, after he has attained is wholly
free fromim self, reaches the essence of all that can

(41:38):
be known, gathered together like a cloud. This is the
true spiritual consciousness interpretation. It has been said that at
the beginning of the way, we must kill our ambition.
The greatest curse, the giant weed, which grows as strongly
in the heart of the devoted disciple as in the
man of desire. The remedy is so sacrifice of self, obedience, humility,

(42:04):
that purity of heart which gives the vision of God. Thereafter,
he who has attained is wrapped about with the essence
of all that can be known, as with a cloud.
He has that perfect illumination which is the true spiritual consciousness.
Through obedience to the will of God, he comes into
oneness of being with God. He is initiated into God's

(42:26):
view of the universe, seeing all life as God sees it.
Thirty thereon comes so cease from sorrow and the burden
of toil. Interpretation, such a one, it is said, is
free from the bond of karma, from the burden of toil,
from that debt to works which comes from works done

(42:47):
in self love and desire, free from self will. He
is free from sorrow too, for sorrow comes from the
fight of self will against the divine will, through the
correcting stress of the divine will, which seeks to counteract
the evil wrought by disobedience. When the conflict with the
divine will ceases, then sorrow ceases, and he who has

(43:08):
grown into disobedience thereby enters into joy. Thirty one. When
all veils are rent, all stains washed away, his knowledge
becomes infinite. Little remains for him to know. Interpretation. The
first veil is the delusion that the soul is in
some permanent way separate from the great soul, the divine eternal.

(43:32):
When that veil is rent, thou shalt discern thy oneness
with everlasting life. The second veil is the delusion of
enduring separateness from thy other selves, whereas in truth, the
soul that is in them is one with the soul
that is in THEE. The world's sin and shame are
thy sin and shame its joy. Also these veils rent,

(43:54):
thou shalt enter into knowledge of divine things and human things.
Little will remain unknown to THEE. Thirty two. Thereafter comes
the completion of the series of transformations of the three
nature potencies. Since their purpose is attained interpretation. It is

(44:15):
a part of the beauty and wisdom of the great
Indian teachings, the Vedanta and the Yoga alike, to hold
that all life exists for the purpose of soul, for
the making of the spiritual man. They teach that all
nature is an orderly process of evolution leading up to
this designed for this end, existing only for this to

(44:35):
bring forth and perfect the spiritual man. He is the
crown of evolution. At his coming, the goal of all
development is attained. Thirty three. The series of transformations is
divided into moments. When the series is completed, time gives
place to duration interpretation. There are two kinds of eternity,

(45:00):
says the commentary, the eternity in immortal life, which belongs
to the spirit, and the eternity of change, which inheres
in nature, in all that is not spirit. While we
are content to live in and for nature in the
circle of necessity Sansara, we doom ourselves to perpetual change.
That which is born must die, and that which dies

(45:22):
must be reborn. It is change, evermore, a ceaseless series
of transformations. But the spiritual man enters a new order.
For him, there is no longer eternal change, but eternal being.
He has entered into the joy of his Lord. This
spiritual birth, which makes him heir to the everlasting, sets
a term to change. It is the culmination, the crowning

(45:45):
transformation of the whole realm of change. Thirty four. Purest
spiritual life is therefore the inverse resolution of the potencies
of nature which have emptied themselves of their value for
the spiritual man, or it is the return of the
power of pure consciousness to its essential form. Interpretation, here

(46:08):
we have a splendid generalization in which our wise philosopher
finally reconciles the naturalists and the idealists, expressing the crown
and end of his teaching, first in terms of the naturalist,
and then in terms of the idealist. The birth and
growth of the spiritual man and his entry into the
immortal heritage may be regarded, says our philosopher, either as

(46:31):
the culmination of the whole process of natural evolution and involution,
where that which flowed from out the boundless deep turns
again home. Or it may be looked at as the
Vedantuns look at it, as the restoration of pure spiritual
consciousness to its pristine and essential form. There is no
discrepancy or conflict between these two views, which are but

(46:54):
two accounts of the same thing. Therefore, those who study
the wise philosopher, be they naturalist or idealist, have no
excuse to linger over dialectic subtleties or disputes. These things
are lifted from their path, lest they should be tempted
to delay over them, and they are left facing the
path itself, stretching upward and onward, from their feet to

(47:17):
the everlasting hills, radiant with infinite light. End of Book
four recording by Kyle James McLean. End of the Yogosutras
of Padunjali by Padunjeally, translated by Charles Johnston eighteen sixty
seven to nineteen thirty one